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U.S. Government 101.

Posted by John on January 21st, 2009 at 8:45 pm · 8 Comments

All right, fellow Americans in the crowd, ready for a throw-down?  Here’s a civic literacy quiz (by way of Briandy)–try to beat my score of 32 out of 33 (97%). [corrected from my earlier 36 out of 37--thanks, leisurely viking!]

I have some good excuses: I’m a poli sci grad, I studied years ago for the Foreign Service Exam (and passed the written portion), and if news came from Capitol Hill in white powdery form, you would find me in the bathroom snorting it through rolled up snippets of the Washington Post.

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8 responses so far ↓

  • 1 leisurelyviking // Jan 21, 2009 at 9:20 pm

    Nope, I got 30/33, 90.91%. Strange that there are fewer questions than you had… I wonder if they deleted some.

  • 2 John // Jan 21, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    Ack, my bad–I got 32/33!

    I needed a bit of humility, apparently. :P

  • 3 xJane // Jan 21, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    sadness, I got 29 of 33 (87.88%), although I’m impressed by some of the ones I got right…

  • 4 Brian // Jan 22, 2009 at 9:37 am

    Only 30 out of 33. Darn you FDR!

  • 5 Leslie // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:43 am

    I’m woman enough to admit that I got 27 of 33 correct — 81.82 %, the lowest score reported so far in comments!

    It’s the econ stuff that threw me. Hey, I went to Pitzer, not CMC!

  • 6 ebrown // Jan 23, 2009 at 12:08 am

    I answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 %

  • 7 JohnW // Jan 23, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    As I told Isaac:

    I answered #13 “Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas” “values
    originating in one’s conscience cannot be judged by others”, when it
    was “certain permanent moral and political truths are accessible to
    human reason”.

    13 was definitely a “I have no clue” question for me. My knowledge of
    philosophers… close to zero. But even then, I should have read
    closer. It was the only answer which made sense that a variety of
    philosophers separated in time and context might agree on.

    Tough ones:
    #1 Declaration of Independence: Stupid struggle to remember the source
    of “and property”. French philosophers?
    #4 Lincoln–Douglas Debates: Discounted C,D and went for the policy
    issue over philosophy (morality of slavery).
    #8 FDR and the Supreme Court: C or D. And something about C tickled
    my memory. More likely than impeachment.
    #11 Anti-Federalists and the Constitution: abolition and taxation
    postdated the writing of the constitution, which is the era of
    Federalists and Anti. And without taxation, the standing army seemed
    difficult. The Navy was around and funded by tariffs, not taxes, I
    think.
    #14 The Puritans: Eliminated D & E. “Opposed war on moral grounds”
    didn’t sound right but was possible. C was deceptively wrong. It’s
    not that they wanted freedom for everyone, just themselves. And I
    seem to remember that the reason they were persecuted was that they
    were such pricks about everyone else’s religion. So B was a bit of a
    shot in the dark.
    #15 Source of phrase “a wall of separation”: BCD were out. George
    Washington’s farewell speech was something I didn’t know anything
    about. But Thomas Jefferson was a big advocate. Not as much of a
    guess as #14.
    #29 Definition of a Public Good: At the last second, I switched from
    “government pays for it’s construction, not citizens.” Seemed to be
    saying the same thing about public vs. private good, but B was more
    about pure definition. A public good might still be privately
    financed.
    #31 International Trade: Specialization leads to increased
    productivity. That’s what I concentrated on.

  • 8 angryyoungwoman // Jan 23, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    30 out of 33, but I think I took that quiz before a few months back.

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